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This work presents the results from an evaluation of stereoscopic versus monoscopic 3D parallel coordinates. The objective of the evaluation was to investigate if stereopsis increases user performance. The results show that stereoscopy has no effect at all on user performance compared to monoscopy. This result is important when it comes to the potential use of stereopsis within the information visualization community.

Achieving food security will require closing yield gaps in many regions, including Pakistan. Although fertilizer subsidies have facilitated increased nitrogen (N) application rates, many staple crop yields have yet to reach their maximum potential. Considering that current animal manure and human excreta (bio-supply) recycling rates are low, there is substantial potential to increase the reuse of nutrients in bio-supply. We quantified 2010 crop N, phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) needs along with bio-supply nutrient availability for Pakistani districts, and compared these values to synthetic fertilizer use and costs. We found that synthetic fertilizer use combined with low bio-supply recycling resulted in a substantial gap between nutrient supply and P and K crop needs, which would cost 3 billion USD to fill with synthetic fertilizers. If all bio-supply was recycled, it could eliminate K synthetic fertilizer needs and decrease N synthetic fertilizer needs to 43% of what was purchased in 2010. Under a full recycling scenario, farmers would still require an additional 0.28 million tons of synthetic P fertilizers, costing 2.77 billion USD. However, it may not be prohibitively expensive to correct P deficiencies. Pakistan already spends this amount of money on fertilizers. If funds used for synthetic N were reallocated to synthetic P purchases in a full bio-supply recycling scenario, crop needs could be met. Most recycling could happen within districts, with only 6% of bio-supply requiring between-district transport when optimized to meet national N crop needs. Increased recycling in Pakistan could be a viable way to decrease yield gaps.

While energy-sector emissions remain the biggest source of climate change, many least-developed countries still invest in fossil-fuel development paths. These countries generally have high levels of fossil fuel technology lock-in and low capacities to change, making the shift to sustainable energy difficult. Tanzania, a telling example, is projected to triple fossil-fuel power production in the next decade. This article assesses the potential to use internationally supported Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) to develop solar energy in Tanzania and contribute to transformational change of the electricity supply system. By assessing the cultural legitimacy of NAMAs among key stakeholders in the solar energy sector, we analyse the conditions for successful uptake of the concept in (1) national political thought and institutional frameworks and (2) the solar energy niche. Interview data are analysed from a multi-level perspective on transition, focusing on its cultural dimension. Several framings undermining legitimacy are articulated, such as attaching low-actor credibility to responsible agencies and the concept’s poor fit with political priorities. Actors that discern opportunities for NAMAs could, however, draw on a framing of high commensurability between experienced social needs and opportunities to use NAMAs to address them through climate compatible development. This legitimises NAMAs and could challenge opposing framings.

Putting climate change policy-integration into practice is challenged by problems of institutional misfit, due to, inter alia, deficient vertical administrative interplay. While most focus within the field of climate change research has targeted the national-local interplay, less is known about the interface of regional and local perspectives. Here, the aim is to study that interface with a specific focus on the relation between regional and local spatial planning actors, through a case-study of transport and coastal zone management in a Swedish municipality. The article is based on interviews (focus group and single in-depth) and official planning documents. The material reveals a tricky planning situation, replete with conflict. In practice, various institutional frameworks, claims and ambitions collide. The attempts to steer the local spatial planning initiatives from the regional level led to conflicts, which in turn seems to have hampered the overall work for climate change management through spatial planning. Furthermore, there are few traces of prospects of a smooth vertical institutional interplay able to support the overall aims related to integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation in spatial planning. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the climate change communication literature, the concept of framing is increasingly used to discuss various understandings of climate change. This paper addresses the under-researched question of how specific audiences perceive the adequacy of various climate change frames, by exploring how Swedish farmers make sense of climate change information. Based on focus group discussions with farmers, the paper explores what communicators, or frame articulators, Swedish farmers perceive as central and how farmers judge the credibility of potential frame articulators in climate change communication. The paper discusses 1) the credibility of frame articulators as a matter of perceived independence and impartiality, 2) empirical credibility—whether farmers were able to verify the claims underlying climate change frames—as a matter of practical experience versus analytical reasoning, and 3) frame consistency, i.e. whether climate change frames correspond to audience beliefs and claims.

While previous research into understandings of climate change has usually examined general public perceptions, this study offers an audience-specific departure point. This article analyses how Swedish farmers perceive climate change and how they jointly shape their understandings. The agricultural sector is of special interest because it both contributes to and is directly affected by climate change. Through focus group discussions with Swedish farmers, this study finds that (1) farmers relate to and understand climate change through their own experiences, (2) climate change is understood either as a natural process subject to little or no human influence or as anthropogenic and (3) various communication tools contribute to the formation of natural and anthropogenic climate change frames. The article ends by discussing frame resonance and frame clash in public understanding of climate change and by comparing potential similarities and differences in how various segments of the public make sense of climate change.

Climate change communication is a topical and relevant issue, and it is widely acknowledged that public communication about causes, impacts and action alternatives is integral to addressing the challenges of the changing climate. Climate visualization concerns the communication of climate information and data through the use of different information technologies and different modes of visual representation. In the context of climate change communication, climate visualization is highlighted as a potential way of increasing public engagement with climate change. In particular, developments within information technology have provided significant advancements that are claimed to be transformative in engaging lay audiences with issues relating to the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Nevertheless, there is a lack of research exploring climate visualization from an audience perspective. This thesis addresses this gap. The overarching aim is thus to explore the role of climate visualization in climate change communication from an audience perspective, focusing specifically on how lay audiences make meaning of climate change as represented in two examples of climate visualization. In addition, the thesis discusses the potential contributions and/or limitations of climate visualization from a communication perspective.

Based on a social semiotic theoretical framework, this thesis employs focus group interviews to study participants’ meaning-making related to two cases of climate visualization: a dome theatre movie developed for Swedish high school students with the aim of encouraging reflection on climate change causes, impacts and mitigation alternatives, and a web-based tool for climate change adaptation developed to assist Nordic homeowners in adapting to the local impacts of climate change.

The results of this thesis show that climate visualization can help audiences concretize otherwise abstract aspects of climate change, and that the localized focus can make climate change appear more personally relevant and interesting for targeted audiences. Nevertheless, despite these communicative qualities, the analyses also show that participants’ interpretations are shaped by their preconceptions of climate change as a global and distant issue to be solved by other actors, such as national governments, or through international policy negotiations. Although climate visualization can enhance a sense of proximity with climate change, the localization of climate risk can also lead to participants downplaying the significance of climate impacts. In addition, despite the intentions of inducing a sense of agency in both cases of climate visualization, participants critically negotiated messages concerning their roles as individuals in mitigating or adapting to climate change, and assigned this responsibility onto other actors. These findings show that although climate visualization presents certain communicative qualities, it is not a panacea for engaging lay audiences with climate change. This also underlines the importance of considering cultural and social aspects of the communicative event when studying and developing climate visualization tools as a means of communication.

Abstract [en]

Climate change can be difficult for laypeople to make sense of, because of its complexity, the uncertainties involved and its distant impacts. Research has identified the potentials of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for visualizing and communicating climate change to lay audiences and thus addressing these communication challenges.However, little research has focused on how ICT-based visualization affects audiences’ understandings of climate change. Employing a semiotic framework and through a combination of focus group interviews and mindmap exercises, we investigated how Swedish students make sense of climate messages presented through an ICT-based visualisation medium; a dome theatre movie. The paper concludes that visualization in immersive environments works well to concretize aspects of climate change and provide a starting point for reflection, but we argue that the potential to add interactive elements should be further explored, as interaction has the potential to influence meaning-making processes. In addition, audiences’ preconceptions of climate change influence their interpretations of climate messages, which may function as a constraint to climate communication.

Abstract [en]

Homeowners are important actors in implementing climate change adaptation. However, individual socio-cognitive constraints related to risk perceptions and perceived capacity may hamper their action. Climate change visualization could help planning and management overcome such constraints by offering accessible information to increase individual adaptive capacity. Such visualization would require that information be perceived as legitimate and credible by emphasizing the diversity of impacts and alternative options, and simultaneously as salient by highlighting context-specific risks and measures. Based on focus group interviews and test sessions, we analysed how homeowners made sense of and discussed a specific interactive planning support tool – VisAdapt™ – integrating climate scenarios, local risk maps, and adaptation measures for various house types. The tool combines precise and general depictions in visualizing climate change to support adaptation among Nordic homeowners. Results reveal that the tool spurred reflection on concrete local risks and various adaptation actions. The tool was less successful in providing a framework for assessing the magnitude of anticipated changes, making these appear as generally small. Visualization aspects that are important for spurring reflection on adaptive action are specifying various climate parameters, relating climate impacts to established practices for managing weather risks, and emphasizing diverse concrete short- and long-term measures.

Abstract [en]

In recent years, effort has been put into developing various forms of climate visualization to create opportunities for people to explore and learn about local climate change risks and adaptation options. However, how target audiences make sense of such climate visualization has rarely been studied from a communication perspective. This paper analyses how Nordic homeowners made sense of a specific climate visualization tool, the VisAdapt™ tool. Involving 35 homeowners from three cities in 15 group test sessions, this study analyses the interpretive strategies participants applied to make sense of and assess the relevance of the visualized data. The study demonstrates that participants employed a set of interpretive strategies relating to personal experience and well-known places to make sense of the information presented, and that critical negotiation of content played an important role in how participants interpreted the content.

In recent years, effort has been put into developing various forms of climate visualization to create opportunities for people to explore and learn about local climate change risks and adaptation options. However, how target audiences make sense of such climate visualization has rarely been studied from a communication perspective. This paper analyses how Nordic homeowners made sense of a specific climate visualization tool, the VisAdapt™ tool. Involving 35 homeowners from three cities in 15 group test sessions, this study analyses the interpretive strategies participants applied to make sense of and assess the relevance of the visualized data. The study demonstrates that participants employed a set of interpretive strategies relating to personal experience and well-known places to make sense of the information presented, and that critical negotiation of content played an important role in how participants interpreted the content.

This essay discusses the concept of usefulness of research for climate change adaptation. Based on prior research and stakeholder interactions with policymakers and practitioners in the Nordic countries, we contend that critical issues related to the usefulness of adaptation research seem less associated with content (i.e. research outputs), but rather centre around the efforts made to design and communicate research, that is, to put research at the service of society and make the case for adaptation on the political agenda. This, we argue, to some extent mirrors the situation and political context in the Nordic countries, where adaptation in many locations still is an issue in its infancy, not firmly established on the political agendas, and where working procedures are not yet institutionally settled. In this context, science is considered and sometimes used as a discursive tool to make the case for adaptation. Based on the calls for research that inspires, raises hope and helps to raise the issue of adaptation on the political agendas, we elaborate the role of honest issue advocates for researchers in the field of adaptation science.

The purpose of research aid is to contribute to development in different ways through the use of research. Sarec (the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries) was one of the pioneers within state research aid, and existed between 1975 and 2008. One of the central questions asked in my dissertation on Sarec’s policy history is how the view of the relationship between research and development has changed over time. One of the conclusions is that there are two main policy discourses that can be traced throughout the entire period studied. They share the starting point that modern science can contribute to development and that national research capacity is an important component in this. The localist discourse represents a more multifaceted view of how research can contribute to development, and what that development consist of. It is more explicitly anti-colonialist and to a greater degree prioritizes the local context as basis for decisions regarding support. The universalist discourse places less emphasis on where knowledge is produced since it can be used anywhere, as long as the right structures and priorities are in place. This historical perspective will be complemented with reflections on current developments in Swedish science aid policy, focusing on the issue of how science aid can contribute to the sustainable development goals and transitions to sustainability (work in progress).

When attempting to raise awareness about environmental issues, it is important to recognize that the role of the Armed Forces is directly informed by democratic mandate, geared to underpin stability, provide security, and undertake operational missions as required. It can be argued that part of that security and stability involves responding to threats presented by climate change by adopting a Triple Zero approach towards its own consumption of energy and water as well as generation of waste. However a top down technological strategy is unlikely to succeed. Instead there is a need for well-informed communication combined with participatory decision-making to develop trust and good faith to implement a Triple Zero approach to the environment. The tools and techniques available to embark on such a strategy are described in the following pages.

Climate change adaptation efforts continue to increase as the impacts of climate change increase, intensify, and become more apparent. However, many adaptation efforts fail to result in adaptation actions. This inaction has been linked to several constraining factors including a lack of actionable information for adaptation decision-making processes. We wonder if climate service producers face constraints as they try to create and deliver actionable information for adaptation decision-making efforts? This paper draws on semi-structured interviews and participant-observations across climate service production environments in Sweden to answer our research question and fords that climate service producers engage in research, coordination, and communication to varying degrees and experience constraints related to the production and dissemination of actionable information and stakeholder engagement, as well as funding, professional, and institutional constraints. Some constraints are experienced differently by climate service producers depending on their specific role, institutional affiliation, agency, and experience. Additionally, some climate service production constraints create or exacerbate additional constraints for adaptation decision-making stakeholders. Therefore, climate service production constraints limit the effectiveness of climate services, and overcoming them would help make progress towards more adaptation implementation in specific contexts. However, for adaptation actions to be widespread, the production and dissemination of climate services must be met with additional support and guidance for adaptation efforts beyond the provision of actionable information.

The concept of vulnerability often occurs in climate change research and literature. It is understood that vulnerable groups are particularly affected by climate change and thus, mitigation and adaptation measures regarding climate change need to address these vulnerable groups. The policy briefs in this section present different approaches and measures to deal with climate change from vulnerability and adaptation perspectives. Linda Johansson points out that adaptation measures are often not tackling the issues deeply enough and that transformational change is needed in order to address the roots of climate change issues. Digging somewhat deeper into vulnerability, Sara Litzell points out the importance of including most vulnerable groups in climate change adaptation measures. Her brief focuses on gender as women, especially in developing countries, are particularly vulnerable to climate change, but at the same time women present a great potential to contribute to community-based adaptation as they are very knowledgeable with regard to processes and changes in their local regions. The importance of local knowledge also plays a major roles in Sophie Lindstrand's brief, which focuses on UN-REDD. She points out that REDD projects can be most successful if local stakeholders are effectively included and projects follow and bottom-up approach. Sigrid Nilsson's brief focuses on the importance of biodiversity conservation with regard to climate change. She points out that ecosystems do not follow national borders and that biodiversity conservation measures accordingly require global solutions.

This book explores the role of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) in climate governance. It starts by discussing BECCS’ global mitigation potential, as depicted in the idealized world of climate scenarios. Chapter 2 shows that almost all climate scenarios compatible with the high likelihood of limiting global warming to 2°C deploy BECCS. While excluding BECCS from these models’ technology portfolios does not necessarily make 2°C compatible scenarios impossible, it does mean that the projected cost of meeting that goal increases.

In this context, based on interviews with integrated assessment modelers, chapter 3 illustrates how the use of the word “projected” is deliberate and significant. The modelers insist that they are dealing with projections, not predictions. At the same time, this modesty is contrasted to a core willingness to wield political influence.

Chapter 4, which applies a crude method to map European point sources of biogenic CO2, indicates that the scenarios for Europe can be associated with factual potentials. The European pulp and paper industry emitted approximately 60–66 Mt of biogenic CO2 in 2015. To a lesser extent, there is also potential to capture biogenic CO2 from the production of electricity, heat, and biofuels.

While R&D into BECCS has previously been framed as a “slippery slope” triggering objectionable consequences, for example, concerning food security, chapter 5 argues that realizing BECCS should instead be seen as an uphill struggle. This conclusion gains support in chapter 6, which maps existing policy incentives for BECCS. This exercise reveals an almost complete lack of political initiatives to deploy BECCS, indicating that the climate scenarios’ large-scale xi deployment of BECCS could be seen as detached from reality.

The book ends with chapter 7, which illustrates how UN and Swedish climate policy objectives have indeed influenced companies to get involved in planning for negative emissions, but also shows how the lack of policy incentives has put “sticks in the wheel” when it comes to affirmative investment decisions. While some funding sources for R&D and capital expenditures are highlighted, the primary concern is the lack of market pull that would provide revenues to cover operational expenditures.

This book highlights the many caveats involved in moving from the theoretical potentials identified at the global scale to economically viable potentials facing investors at the business scale. It concludes that overcoming the challenges associated with realizing the theoretical potentials will be daunting, a true uphill struggle. Yet, with appropriate policy incentives, BECCS may still come to play an important role in the struggle to limit global warming to well below 2°C.

Limiting global warming to well below 2 °C requires the transformation of the global energy system at a scale unprecedented since the industrial revolution. To meet this 2 °C goal, 87% of integrated assessment models opt for using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Without BECCS, the models predict that the goal will be either unachievable or substantially more costly to meet. While the modeling literature is extensive, studies of how key climate policy actors perceive and prioritize BECCS are sparse. This article provides a unique intercontinental mapping of the prioritization of BECCS for the long term transition of the electricity supply sector. Based on survey responses from 711 UN climate change conference delegates, the article reports the low prioritization of BECCS relative to alternative technologies, indicating an urgent need for studies of the socio-political preconditions for large-scale BECCS deployment.

Fulfilling the UN Paris Agreement on climate change requires societal change at transformational scales, with associated challenges that are intensified in developing countries. In this context, Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) – a key instrument in support of developing countries’ climate actions – are promoted for their high theoretical transformative potential. However, little is known of how NAMAs are related to transformation in practice. This article studies how developing countries intend to use the instrument to implement climate actions and whether these intentions are related to how transformation can be spurred at landscape, regime, and niche levels. 144 developing countries’ Intended Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement are examined alongside 17 representative NAMA proposals. Although there is scope to improve consideration of the instrument’s theoretically high transformative potential in actual design, current practices indicate that spurring transformational change is already a high priority of NAMA designers.

Keeping global warming well below 2 °C entails radically transforming global energy production and use. However, one important mitigation option, the use of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), has so far received only limited attention as regards the sociopolitical preconditions for its deployment. Using questionnaire data from UN climate change conferences, this paper explores the influence of expertise, actor type, and origin on respondents’ a) preferences for investing in BECCS, b) views of the role of BECCS as a mitigation technology, globally and domestically, and c) assessment of possible domestic barriers to BECCS deployment. Non-parametric statistical analysis reveals the low priority assigned to investments in BECCS, the anticipated high political and social constraints on deployment, and a gap between its low perceived domestic potential to contribute to mitigation and a slightly higher perceived global potential. The most important foreseen deployment constraints are sociopolitical, which in turn influence the economic feasibility of BECCS. However, these constraints (e.g. lack of policy incentives and social acceptance) are poorly captured in climate scenarios, a mismatch indicating a need for both complemented model scenarios and further research into sociopolitical preconditions for BECCS.

Homeowners are important actors in implementing climate change adaptation. However, individual socio-cognitive constraints related to risk perceptions and perceived capacity may hamper their action. Climate change visualization could help planning and management overcome such constraints by offering accessible information to increase individual adaptive capacity. Such visualization would require that information be perceived as legitimate and credible by emphasizing the diversity of impacts and alternative options, and simultaneously as salient by highlighting context-specific risks and measures. Based on focus group interviews and test sessions, we analysed how homeowners made sense of and discussed a specific interactive planning support tool – VisAdapt™ – integrating climate scenarios, local risk maps, and adaptation measures for various house types. The tool combines precise and general depictions in visualizing climate change to support adaptation among Nordic homeowners. Results reveal that the tool spurred reflection on concrete local risks and various adaptation actions. The tool was less successful in providing a framework for assessing the magnitude of anticipated changes, making these appear as generally small. Visualization aspects that are important for spurring reflection on adaptive action are specifying various climate parameters, relating climate impacts to established practices for managing weather risks, and emphasizing diverse concrete short- and long-term measures.

Strategy-making is key for realizing sustainable urban water management. Though general barriers and factors for change have been identified, fewer studies have assessed how different conditions influence municipalities’ strategy-making ability and, thus, how to plan strategically given these conditions. Healey’s strategy-making notion was applied to delimit a study of how size, finances, development path, and water organization influence Swedish municipalities’ strategy-making ability for urban water. Three municipalities, Laxå, Norrköping, and Skellefteå, with different, yet overlapping, institutional and socio-economic conditions were analyzed using semi-structured interviews, a stakeholder workshop, and document analyses. The study finds that even though key events have filtered urban water issues into the political agenda, this has not induced systemic change, except where the role of water management in urban development has been specified, i.e., has aligned dispersed planning processes. Organizational setup influences the strategy-making ability by prescribing not only when water issues are raised, but also what system perspective should be applied and what actors that should be enrolled. Judging from the three cases, size, finances, and development path do matter for strategy-making ability, but they appear to be less important than the organizational setup. Departures for improving strategy-making under different conditions are discussed.

The insurance industry is important for facilitating climate change adaptation. Insurance companies involvement is, however, influenced by national adaptation policy. The literature suggests that especially policy factors - government interventions, political priorities and public-private cooperation - and market factors - cost offset, cost mitigation, planning flexibility and business opportunities - shape private actor approaches. To increase the understanding of insurance company involvement in adaptation, this study examines how insurance companies approaches are influenced by policy and market factors in three countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The study found that the policy factors tested significantly shaped the approaches of the companies assessed, while market factors currently appear less influential. This is likely due to the absence of climate risk and adaptation in political debates and among insurance policyholders. The study discusses the potential role of the insurance industry in adaptation governance and suggests how barriers facing insurance companies could be overcome.

The textile industry is one of the major industrial polluters, and water recycling is yet far from being standard practice. Wastewater generation remains a serious and growing problem, affecting ecosystems, human health and freshwater availability for other uses. India is the worlds third largest exporter of textiles and the sector directly employs 45 million people. This case study explores the socio-technical transition of Tirupur, a textile cluster dubbed as the first in India to shift to zero liquid discharge (ZLD) in a systematic manner. It traces a path towards increased environmental sustainability that takes off in a time characterised by no effluent treatment, to the advanced approach to wastewater handling that was the norm in 2016. By adding a multi-scalar perspective, light is shed on where the system changes emerged that inspired key actors during various phases of the defining 35 years. The process towards ZLD becoming best practice involves conflicts, adaptation, resistance, and vast socioeconomic losses. Eventually, innovative ideas and artefacts replaced old practices, and effluent discharge has become a symbol of noncompliance. Farmers movements, authority directions and court orders drove the development, which came to inform a policy shift to mainstream water recovery in the textiles industry.

The calibration and validation of remote sensing land cover products are highly dependent on accurate field reference data, which are costly and practically challenging to collect. We describe an optical method for collection of field reference data that is a fast, cost-efficient, and robust alternative to field surveys and UAV imaging. A lightweight, waterproof, remote-controlled RGB camera (GoPro HERO4 Silver, GoPro Inc.) was used to take wide-angle images from 3.1 to 4.5 m in altitude using an extendable monopod, as well as representative near-ground (amp;lt; 1 m) images to identify spectral and structural features that correspond to various land covers in present lighting conditions. A semi-automatic classification was made based on six surface types (graminoids, water, shrubs, dry moss, wet moss, and rock). The method enables collection of detailed field reference data, which is critical in many remote sensing applications, such as satellite-based wetland mapping. The method uses common non-expensive equipment, does not require special skills or training, and is facilitated by a step-by-step manual that is included in the Supplement. Over time a global ground cover database can be built that can be used as reference data for studies of non-forested wetlands from satellites such as Sentinel 1 and 2 (10 m pixel size).

Chapter 3 (“Views of BECCS Among Modelers and Policymakers”) moves from exploring the magnitude of BECCS deployment in climate scenarios to outlining caveats raised by modelers themselves. The chapter addresses how modelers navigate the landscape of political and academic pressures to deliver timely, insightful, and relevant policy advice despite inherent and crucial uncerttainties and increasing model complexity. Based on interviews with modelers, the chapter discusses perspectives on uncertainty, the communication of IAM results, and the models’ relationship to reality. The chapter also discuss views of BECCS among policymakers whom generally want to give relatively low priority to investments in BECCS. Failing to invest in the future delivery of BECCS, combined with today’s lack of mitigation ambition, limits future generations’ maneuvering room to resolve the climate crisis.

Forest conversion in the tropics is increasingly driven by global demand for agricultural forest-risk commodities such as soy, beef, palm oil and timber. In order to be effective, future forest conservation policies should include measures targeting both producers (the supply side) and consumers (the demand side) to address commodity driven deforestation. Whereas the UN Conventions on Biodiversity (CBD) and Climate Change (UNFCCC) do not make reference to this driving factor, here we explore whether and how recent national strategies by member states to the Conventions acknowledge the role of agricultural commodities in tropical deforestation. A text analysis of 139 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to climate change mitigation and 132 National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) shows that the general trade-off between national development aspirations and forest conservation is commonly acknowledged. However, only few strategies link deforestation to commodity production and consumption, whereas most documents do not mention this topic. This lack of reference to a key driver of tropical deforestation limits the prospects of safeguarding tropical forests for biodiversity and climate change mitigation purposes as part of the two UN Conventions, and might jeopardise their overall effectiveness. These findings were complemented by a content analysis of INDCs, NBSAPs and REDD + documents from eight case countries affected by commodity-driven deforestation. We investigated whether this driver is acknowledged in the national strategies, and which policy measures are suggested to address forest loss from agricultural commodities. We found that six case countries mention agricultural commodities as deforestation driver in their REDD + documents, whereas the biodiversity and climate change strategies were silent on the topic. Policy measures targeting commodity production were suggested in four REDD + strategies, ranging from incentive payments, sustainable agricultural practices and land-use planning to demand-side approaches such as certification and the promotion of sustainable lifestyles. One conclusion from this exercise is that UN member states seem not to consider climate and biodiversity national plans the adequate forum to discuss detailed forest conservation approaches. We argue that in order to increase effectiveness, strategies under the UN Conventions should take commodity-driven deforestation into account, through measures that address both the producer and the consumer side.

This study contributes to a growing body of research that studies how different societal actors view climate engineering (CE) in an effort to open up received framings and make them amenable to deliberations. CE is an umbrella term for different proposals of how to counteract global warming with technological means, some of which have sparked controversy. Drawing on fifteen interviews, the study explores how scientists who advise the European Commission on research funding priorities regarding climate change and sustainability view CE. They considered CE as treating the symptoms rather than the causes of climate change, as interfering in complex and unpredictable natural systems, and as engendering questions of distributive justice. They also stressed the complexity of governing climate change and expressed support for basic CE research. The concluding discussion dwells on the implications of foresight, the division of labor in research governance, and the challenge of poverty for governing technologies in the service of climate action.

Rooted in different theories and focusing on different elements of the socio-ecological fabric, climate transitions and transformations are conceived to have various forms. Although these literatures recognize the significance of learning and boundary spanning, systematic reviews of the role of knowledge in climate transitions are lacking. We review how targets of transformation, functions, types, and intermediaries of knowledge are conceptualized in five types of literature. We highlight that knowledge has a role as: the motor of transition in Transition Management literature, a consultant supporting transition in Transformational Climate Adaptation literature, an emancipator of transition in Transform Political and Economic Systems literature, the beacon guiding transition in Social-Ecological Transformation literature, and an Ad Hoc Committee motivating transition in Grassroots Transitions literature.

How to organize citizen participation in planning is continuously debated. The amount of Online Participatory Tools (OPTs) to facilitate inclusive and efficient participation has increased. While studies have assessed their functionality, usability and effectiveness in planning, they have rarely analyzed OPTs beyond single-cases, targeted tools that are widely used or assessed how OPTs affect broader values of participation. Targeting this absence, this study analyzes how ten applications of a widely used OPT, CityPlanner™, affect the normative, substantive and instrumental values of citizen participatory planning in Swedish cities. By analyzing 1,354 citizen proposals and interviewing urban planners, we find that citizens more extensively submit proposals and initiate debates on planning when using the OPT. Results suggest a more even age and gender distribution among proposal users than with conventional methods, facilitating normative values of participation. The OPT was generally applied early in planning and generated high-quality inputs. Our results, however, nuance previous analyses by also emphasizing the importance of place-specificity of OPT applications and of joint participation strategies among departments. Key for OPT development includes the need to improve their ability to analyze overarching trends among inputs.

Global climate change governance has changed substantially in the last decade, with a shift in focus from negotiating globally agreed greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets to nationally determined contributions, as enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement. This paper analyses trends in adoption of national climate legislation and strategies, GHG targets, and renewable and energy efficiency targets in almost all UNFCCC Parties, focusing on the period from 2007 to 2017. The uniqueness and added value of this paper reside in its broad sweep of countries, the more than decade-long coverage and the use of objective metrics rather than normative judgements. Key results show that national climate legislation and strategies witnessed a strong increase in the first half of the assessed decade, likely due to the political lead up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference in 2009, but have somewhat stagnated in recent years, currently covering 70% of global GHG emissions (almost 50% of countries). In comparison, the coverage of GHG targets increased considerably in the run up to adoption of the Paris Agreement and 89% of global GHG emissions are currently covered by such targets. Renewable energy targets saw a steady spread, with 79% of the global GHG emissions covered in 2017 compared to 45% in 2007, with a steep increase in developing countries.

Key policy insights

The number of countries that have national legislation and strategies in place increased strongly up to 2012, but the increase has levelled off in recent years, now covering 70% of global emissions by 2017 (48% of countries and 76% of global population).

Economy-wide GHG reduction targets witnessed a strong increase in the build up to 2015 and are adopted by countries covering 89% of global GHG emissions (76% not counting USA) and 90% of global population (86% not counting USA) in 2017.

Renewable energy targets saw a steady increase throughout the last decade with coverage of countries in 2017 comparable to that of GHG targets.

Key shifts in national measures coincide with landmark international events – an increase in legislation and strategy in the build-up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference and an increase in targets around the Paris Agreement – emphasizing the importance of the international process to maintaining national momentum.

The Web-based visualization VisAdapt tool was developed to help laypeople in the Nordic countries assess how anticipated climate change will impact their homes. The tool guides users through a three-step visual process that helps them explore risks and identify adaptive actions specifically modified to their location and house type. This article walks through the tool's multistep, user-centered design process. Although VisAdapt's target end users are Nordic homeowners, the insights gained from the development process and the lessons learned from the project are applicable to a wide range of domains.

As experiences of implementation of climate change adaptation are accumulating, there is a need toincrease the understanding of the potential negative consequences of adaptation actions that mightoccur, and the capacity of research to assess them. Maladaptation used in this context has remainedelusively defined and sparingly used, and therefore difficult to apply. Based on a literature review, wediscuss the conceptual boundaries of maladaptation and how it can be used to analyse negativeoutcomes of adaptation and propose a refined definition. We present a typology of maladaptation thatdistinguishes between three types of maladaptive outcomes – rebounding vulnerability, shiftingvulnerability and eroding sustainable development, and argue that maladaptation can be defined as a resultof an intentional adaptation policy or measure directly increasing vulnerability for the targeted and/orexternal actor(s), and/or eroding preconditions for sustainable development by indirectly increasing society’svulnerability. We note that the recognition of adaptation as an intentional action and the importance ofsetting clear spatial and temporal boundaries, as well as thresholds, are key to analysing negativeoutcomes.

The Swedish youth organization Fältbiologerna was founded in 1947 with the mission to inspire learning about nature through outdoor activities. Since then, the members have stayed true to their slogan ‘keep your boots muddy’ through engaging in bird watching and forest excursions; however, in the late 1960s and early 1970s – a period that environmental historians refer to as the ‘ecological turn’ – the organization’s activities were extended to also include political activism. Fältbiologerna increasingly evolved into a fertile terrain for young environmentalists. In this article, we explore how this Swedish branch of modern environmental youth activism came about. Based on a close reading of the members’ journal, Fältbiologen,between 1959 and 1974, we identify four key characteristics that were communicated in the journal during the years of study: adventurous, knowledgeable, influential, and radical. We demonstrate that Fältbiologerna took an increasingly radical position and began to engage in environmental debates and actions, while still holding on to ideals of learning through spending time in nature. Participation in these different activities shaped the young members into environmentalists.

The building sector accounts for 40 % of the energy usage, and to be able to reach the energy reduction goals set within the EU and Sweden, the building sector needs to change toward energy efficiency. The building sector has a lot of energy saving potential, and within the sector, the HVAC- and plumbing section has the greatest saving potential. Since building trade magazines are directed to practitioners within the building sector, and also their main channel for information regarding projects and developments, this study has used qualitative content analysis on articles, regarding energy efficiency, between the years of 2002-2014. Two building magazines and one HVAC- and plumbing magazine were used to cover the field of what issues regarding energy efficiency were mediated to the readers. The study found out that during the first years, the magazines mediated a positive image towards energy efficiency measures, but mentioned little concrete action plans. After the implementation of more stringent laws, the magazines mediated different issues in a more equal spreading, however two different issues battled to be heard. These were concerns regarding the risks of using new methods not tried before, the lack of clear definitions from the authorities and a focus on a holistic perspective that included environmental thinking. The most recent years focused on practical solutions, adopting a holistic perspective that included both buildings and individual behaviors. During the years, the magazines in general framed energy efficiency measures as something positive and mediated the image of that energy efficiency measures would be taken in the future.

This article takes stock of the evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) through the prism of three recent shifts: the move away from targeting industrial country emissions in a legally binding manner under the Kyoto Protocol to mandating voluntary contributions from all countries under the Paris Agreement; the shift from the top-down Kyoto architecture to the hybrid Paris outcome; and the broadening out from a mitigation focus under Kyoto to a triple goal comprising mitigation, adaptation, and finance under Paris. This review discusses the implications of these processes for the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of the UNFCCCs institutional and operational settings for meeting the conventions objectives. It ends by sketching three potential scenarios facing the UNFCCC as it seeks to coordinate the Paris Agreement and its relationship to the wider landscape of global climate action.

In this article, we outline the multifaceted roles played by non-state actors within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and place this within the wider landscape of global climate governance. In doing so, we look at both the formation and aftermath of the 2015 Paris Agreement. We argue that the Paris Agreement cements an architecture of hybrid multilateralism that enables and constrains non-state actor participation in global climate governance. We flesh out the constitutive features of hybrid multilateralism, enumerate the multiple positions non-state actors may employ under these conditions, and contend that non-state actors will play an increasingly important role in the post-Paris era. To substantiate these claims, we assess these shifts and ask how non-state actors may affect the legitimacy, justice, and effectiveness of the Paris Agreement. (c) 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has provided periodic assessments of the state of knowledge on climate change for 30 years. While these assessments have been central to the making of international climate policy, their relevance has been questioned in the post-Paris era. Can the IPCCs global kinds of knowledge match the demands of an increasingly decentralized and polycentric policy landscape? In this paper we respond to this question by analysing how the IPCC renders a multiple object such as climate change amenable to political intervention. We are particularly interested in the socio-material practices undertaken to translate a complex body of knowledge into a synthesis relevant to climate policy-making. To that end we trace the production of the Synthesis Report (SYR) to the IPCCs 5th Assessment Report (AR5), from scoping, to chapter crafting and final plenary approval, using author interviews, document analysis and observations. We argue that the writing of an IPCC synthesis is a constitutive process that rests upon numerous practices of standardization, aggregation and simplification. While these practices allow the authors to produce a coherent story of global climate change, they are less attuned to demands for geographically-sensitive representations of climate impacts, vulnerabilities and a diversity of response options. As the ways of responding to a changing climate multiply, we argue, so should the understanding and making of policy-relevant knowledge.

This article examines the role the UNFCCC plays in a polycentric climate regime complex. Through an extended questionnaire survey at the UN Climate Conferences in Warsaw (2013), Lima (2014) and Paris (2015), we study what government delegates and non-state observers see as the main purpose of UN climate summitry and their roles therein. Only a minority of these actors attend UN Climate Conferences to actively influence the outcome of the intergovernmental negotiation process. Instead, most come to these meetings to network, build interpersonal relationships, learn from each other and foster a sense of community across scales of difference. The ability of the UNFCCC to bring together different actors across time and space, to perform multiple policy tasks, has become one of its notable strengths and is an important facilitative practice that holds the polycentric regime complex together.

Agroforestry and other types of multifunctional land-use systems have increasingly been highlighted as win-win-win solutions to meet the challenges of climate change, agricultural intensification, secure ecosystem services as well as support to food security. In this brief the authors seek in the literature for evidence and information on the food security link to homegardens; a traditional agroforestry system common in Sri Lanka, and promoted by the Sri Lankan government .

Recently, there has been growing interest in agroforestry systems due to their great potential to mitigate threats to household food and nutrition security from soaring food prices but also as carbon sinks. In Sri Lanka, smallholder farms such as homegardens constitute a majority of Sri Lanka’s total annual crop and timber production. Despite Sri Lankan homegardens being considered desirable and sustainable land-use systems, their role in food and nutrition security is not yet entirely understood. By synthesising scientific articles and grey literature we sought the link between food security and homegardens by quantifying their products or services and ascertaining whether food security characteristics are assessed as direct or indirect impacts. The results show that 27% of 92 identified articles directly quantified aspects that are relevant to food security. Another 51% of the articles quantified indirect aspects that have relevance for food security, including climate, soil, ecosystem services, structural and floristic diversity and economic aspects. Twenty-two percent of the articles were categorised as being qualitative or conceptual and contained no direct assessments or quantification of food security. The presence of significant merits from homegardens includes providing food security throughout the year at low-cost while sustaining numerous ecosystem services. This benefits particularly the poor farmers. However, many studies are descriptive and only provide location-specific information on single research focuses such as plant species, yield and management. There are few comparisons with crop land, forests or other production systems, and there is even less empirical evidence and quantification of the food security and other benefits. Seven areas where more scientific focus would be beneficial are identified. Homegardens are strong in national policies and to reach a greater level of efficiency within these activities our findings suggest more emphasis on a higher degree of inclusiveness of relevant stakeholders and long-term engagements with context specific guidance.

Eye-tracking has become an invaluable tool for the analysis of working practices in many technological fields of activity. Typically studies focus on short tasks and use static expected areas of interest (AoI) in the display to explore subjects’ behaviour, making the analyst’s task quite straightforward. In long-duration studies, where the observations may last several hours over a complete work session, the AoIs may change over time in response to altering workload, emergencies or other variables making the analysis more difficult. This work puts forward a novel method to automatically identify spatial AoIs changing over time through a combination of clustering and cluster merging in the temporal domain. A visual analysis system based on the proposed methods is also presented. Finally, we illustrate our approach within the domain of air traffic control, a complex task sensitive to prevailing conditions over long durations, though it is applicable to other domains such as monitoring of complex systems.

The impact of global phosphorus scarcity on food security has increasingly been the focus of scientific studies over the past decade. However, systematic analyses of alternative futures for phosphorus supply and demand throughout the food system are still rare and provide limited inclusion of key stakeholders. Addressing global phosphorus scarcity requires an integrated approach exploring potential demand reduction as well as recycling opportunities. This implies recovering phosphorus from multiple sources, such as food waste, manure, and excreta, as well as exploring novel opportunities to reduce the long-term demand for phosphorus in food production such as changing diets. Presently, there is a lack of stakeholder and scientific consensus around priority measures. To therefore enable exploration of multiple pathways and facilitate a stakeholder dialog on the technical, behavioral, and institutional changes required to meet long-term future phosphorus demand, this paper introduces an interactive web-based tool, designed for visualizing global phosphorus scenarios in real time. The interactive global phosphorus scenario tool builds on several demand and supply side measures that can be selected and manipulated interactively by the user. It provides a platform to facilitate stakeholder dialog to plan for a soft landing and identify a suite of concrete priority options, such as investing in agricultural phosphorus use efficiency, or renewable fertilizers derived from phosphorus recovered from wastewater and food waste, to determine how phosphorus demand to meet future food security could be attained on a global scale in 2040 and 2070. This paper presents four example scenarios, including (1) the potential of full recovery of human excreta, (2) the challenge of a potential increase in non-food phosphorus demand, (3) the potential of decreased animal product consumption, and (4) the potential decrease in phosphorus demand from increased efficiency and yield gains in crop and livestock systems.

Agriculture is often described as one of the sectors most vulnerable to future climate change, and its vulnerability is commonly assessed through quantitative indices. However, such indices differ significantly depending on their selected indicators, weighting mechanisms, and summarizing methods, often leading to divergent assessments of vulnerability for the same geographic area. The use of generic indicators might also lead to a loss of information about contextual risks and vulnerabilities. This may reduce the perceived usefulness of indices among stakeholders.

This study analyses the role of indicators in assessing agricultural vulnerability to climate change. It analyses how indices are understood and used through three separate focus group sessions, involving agricultural experts professionally active in south-eastern Sweden. The paper presents how agricultural practitioners perceive a set of common vulnerability indicators, presented through a visualization tool, and their relevance, logic, and applicability to assess and address vulnerability to climate change. The results of this study contribute with perspectives on (i) the relevance and applicability of the commonly used generic indicators for agricultural vulnerability (ii) the assumed correlation of indicators with climate vulnerability and (iii) the identification of missing vulnerability indicators. The study finds that commonly used vulnerability indicators are perceived hard to apply in practice, as definitions and thresholds are often depending on the geographical and temporal scale, as well as the regional context. Additional exposure factors that were identified included extreme events, such as heavy precipitation and external factors such as global food demand and trade-patterns. Further, participants expressed that it is important to include indices that combine effects of multiple climatic changes and in-direct factors, such as policies, regulations and measures. Inherent complexities, context dependencies, and multiple factors should further be included, but entail difficulties in developing suitable indicators. These factors must be addressed by a broader set of qualitative and quantitative indicators, and greater flexibility in the assessment methodology. The interactive vulnerability assessments presented in this paper indicate a need for an integration of quantitative and qualitative aspects and how such indicators could be developed and applied.

The global phosphorus cycle has been transformed in recent decades through increased use of mineral phosphorus fertilizer in agriculture and losses to water bodies, leading to risks of fossil phosphorus resource depletion and freshwater eutrophication. By moving phosphorus resources across world regions, international trade of agricultural products (food, feed, fiber and fuel) may contribute to these changes in the global phosphorus cycle, including critical nutrient imbalances. However, we lack a comprehensive, quantitative understanding of the role of agricultural trade in the global phosphorus cycle. By combining detailed data on international trade and the phosphorus content of agricultural products, we demonstrate that phosphorus flows through trade increased nearly eight-fold from 0.4 Tg P/yr in 1961 to 3.0 Tg P/yr in 2011, leading to an increase in the fraction of phosphorus taken up by crops that is subsequently exported from 9% in 1961 to 20% in 2011. The P flows in traded agricultural products was equivalent to 27% of the P traded in mineral fertilizers in 2011. Agricultural P flows were mostly driven by trade of cereals, soybeans and feed-cakes, with 28% of global phosphorus traded in human food, 44% in animal feed and 28% in crops for other uses in 2011. We found a strong spatial pattern in traded phosphorus in agricultural products, with most flows originating from the Americas and ending in Western Europe and Asia, with large amounts of phosphorus moving through trade within Western Europe, in strong contrast with the pattern of the mineral P fertilizer trade. We demonstrate that international trade of agricultural products has affected the domestic phosphorus cycle within many countries, making phosphorus exporters susceptible to the volatility of the mineral phosphorus fertilizer market. Overall, these results highlight the importance of trade as key component of the global phosphorus cycle.

Dryland livestock production systems are changing in many parts of the world, as a result of growing human populations and associated pressure on water and land. Based on a combination of social and natural science methods, we studied a 30-year transformation process from pastoralism to a livestock-based agro-pastoral system in northwestern Kenya, with the overall aim to increase the understanding of the ongoing transition towards intensified agro-pastoralist production systems in dryland East Africa.

Key to this transformation was the use of enclosures for land rehabilitation, fodder production, and land and livestock management. Enclosures have more soil carbon and a higher vegetation cover than adjacent areas with open grazing. The level of adoption of enclosures as a management tool has been very high, and their use has enabled agricultural diversification, e.g. increased crop agriculture, poultry production and the inclusion of improved livestock. Following the use of enclosures, livelihoods have become less dependent on livestock migration, are increasingly directed towards agribusinesses and present new opportunities and constraints for women. These livelihood changes are closely associated with, and depend on, an ongoing privatization of land under different tenure regimes.

The results indicate that the observed transformation provides opportunities for a pathway towards a sustainable livestock-based agro-pastoral system that could be valid in many dryland areas in East Africa. However, we also show that emergent risks of conflicts and inequalities in relation to land, triggered by the weakening of collective property rights, pose a threat to the sustainability of this pathway.

This contribution examines the role European Union (EU) leadership played in the outcome of the 2015 COP21 climate summit in Paris. The EUs attempts to realise its bid for climate change leadership are scrutinised by investigating to what extent the EU is actually recognised as a leader by potential followers and to what extent the EU has succeeded in achieving its negotiation objectives. To address these issues we utilize survey data collected at eight UN climate summits from 2008 to 2015 and evaluate the results of the climate negotiations particularly with respect to the Unions goal attainment in Copenhagen and Paris. Our findings, which reveal a fragmented leadership landscape in which the EU must adjust its leadership strategies in relation to other powerful actors, such as the United States and China, provide insights into leadership theory and the EUs prospects for exerting influence as an external actor on the world stage.